At the half way point of the 2017 season we looked at each driver’s relative return on investment for their respective teams – their bang for buck. To calculate this we divided each driver’s accumulated World Drivers Championship points by their salary earned at the half way stage of the season.
The analysis produced a rough and ready relative value for each driver with some interesting results. The ranking ultimately showed that the extremely high annual salaries paid to the sport’s top drivers do not necessarily align with the value they generate in terms of WDC points.
Of course a driver’s ability to accumulate WDC points, regardless of skill, is highly dependent on the car they find themselves in as well as many other factors. Ultimately though scoring points is what drivers are employed to do.
Based on our analysis the best value driver at the half way point of the 2017 season was Esteban Ocon. The highly rated full season rookie cost Force India just $2,261 per Championship point. All the mid-season results can be seen here.
Now the 2017 Formula One season has been run and won we were interested to see how each driver’s relative value to their teams panned out over the full season.
Did Ocon finish the season on top? In a word…yes!
| Rank | Driver | Team | Salary | WDC Points | $ / Point |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| * Salary figures for Bottas and Alonso include bonus payments | |||||
| 1 | Esteban Ocon | Force India | $185,000 | 87 | $2,126 |
| 2 | Carlos Sainz | Torro Rosso | $750,000 | 54 | $13,889 |
| 3 | Max Verstappen | Red Bull | $3,000,000 | 168 | $17,857 |
| 4 | Stoffel Vandoorne | McLaren | $300,000 | 13 | $23,077 |
| 5 | Sergio Perez | Force India | $2,500,000 | 100 | $25,000 |
| 6 | Valtteri Bottas* | Mercedes | $8,500,000 | 305 | $27,869 |
| 7 | Pascal Wehrlein | Sauber | $150,000 | 5 | $30,000 |
| 8 | Daniel Ricciardo | Red Bull | $6,500,000 | 200 | $32,500 |
| 9 | Kimi Raikkonen | Ferrari | $7,000,000 | 205 | $34,146 |
| 10 | Kevin Magnussen | Haas | $1,000,000 | 19 | $52,632 |
| 11 | Romain Grosjean | Haas | $1,500,000 | 28 | $53,571 |
| 12 | Nico Hulkenberg | Renault | $3,000,000 | 43 | $69,767 |
| 13 | Felipe Massa | Williams | $3,500,000 | 43 | $81,395 |
| 14 | Lewis Hamilton | Mercedes | $31,000,000 | 363 | $85,399 |
| 15 | Sebastian Vettel | Ferrari | $30,000,000 | 317 | $94,637 |
| 16 | Jolyon Palmer | Renault | $1,000,000 | 8 | $125,000 |
| 17 | Daniil Kvyat | Torro Rosso | $750,000 | 5 | $150,000 |
| 18 | Fernando Alonso* | McLaren | $40,000,000 | 17 | $2,352,941 |
| 19 | Marcus Ericsson | Sauber | $285,000 | 0 | – |
| N/A | Lance Stroll | Williams | Not Available | 40 | Not Available |
Esteban Ocon maintained his lead as the best value driver on the grid right through to the seasons’s conclusion. Ocon beat the second ranked Chili Sainz by over $10,000 per point! The incredibly consistent first full season by the Frenchman is reflected in the fact that his $/point score changed by only $135/point between the mid-season break and the season finale in Abu Dhabi.
Sainz also maintained his 2nd place but Max Verstappen moved from 5th at the half way mark to finish the season in 3rd. At the other end of the rankings Hamilton, Vettel and Alonso didn’t perform well in our value scores. With 11 World Championships between them these three superstars clearly bring more value to their respective teams than just their performances on track. In one of the biggest sports in the world branding and marketing power are highly valued.
Fernando may have cost McLaren more than $2.3M per WDC point but he is arguably still one of the best on the grid as the stats clearly show. Few would argue that the Spaniard extracted everything he could out of the underpowered McLaren Honda. McLaren will literally be banking on the fact that the new Renault power unit will enable Alonso to use his prodigious talent to accrue many more points in 2018.
It should be noted that Carlos Sainz drove for Renault in the final four races of the season and we have assumed he remained on his previous salary at Torro Rosso. Similarly for Brendon Hartley and Pierre Gasly race payments are unknown but at the end of the season neither had accumulated a WDC point.
We have also assumed that Jolyon Palmer and Danill Kyviat were both paid the remainder of their salaries for the year though depending on their contracts they may have also received some form of “golden handshake” to compensate for their forced redundancies.
HOW DO TEAMMATES COMPARE?
As we saw in our end of season head to head analysis 2017 had some closely fought teammate battles as well as some more one sided affairs. Unsurprisingly there were some similar results in the $/point comparisons.
Interestingly for teammates who spent the entire season together no driver who finished ahead of their teammate in the points also represented better value for money. Hamilton, Vettel, Ricciardo, Grosjean, Alonso and Perez all finished with more championship points than their teammates but were also more expensive in the $/point rankings.
Some team’s drivers were closer than others in both their head to head results on track and in $/point value. The one clear standout with very little separating the drivers in performance and value was HAAS. Romain Grosjean and Kevin Magnussen were the only pairing to draw the season in our 6 head to head factors and were also the only team mates to be extremely close in their $/point values – less than $1,000/point difference or less than two percent!
It will be fascinating to see if either RoGro or KMag can break the shackles and dominate their team mate in 2018. Not only were these two drivers closely matched they were also collectively expensive. Only one other team (Renault) spent more than $50,000 per championship point on both drivers in 2017. Gene Haas will be hoping his cars move up the standings in 2018 – if not it may make more business sense to team one of his experienced drivers with a promising rookie on a much reduced salary.
“PAY DRIVERS” – AND HOW MUCH TO PAY DRIVERS
With constant news about “pay drivers” it would be naive to think a driver’s relative value to a team was only in the cost of their salaries compared to their on track performance. Most drivers in the paddock bring some form of sponsorship to their teams so in many instances the salary cost of a driver would be covered many times over by the funds that driver brings to the team coffers.
Even so the cream generally rises to the top – as young drivers prove themselves on track demand for their services generally increases and seats in top teams potentially open up. But there are exceptions.
At the half way point of the season Pascal Werlein was sitting third in our $/point ranking. Unfortunately for the young German that performance wasn’t enough for him to keep his seat in 2018. He was dumped by Sauber in favour of the promising Monegasque (and Ferrari protege) Charles Leclerc. Werlein had comprehensively beaten his teammate on track but this wasn’t enough for Sauber to retain him. They chose instead to keep Marcus Ericsson and the sponsorship money he brings to the team.
Every team would clearly like to have the best drivers possible in their cars. With no disrespect to Ericsson, Wehrlein’s plight is a good example of just how difficult it is for teams to manage the overall expense of the sport and the compromises that need to be made.
HOW DO MOTOGP SUPERSTARS COMPARE?
We enjoyed comparing MotoGP bike performance with current F1 cars in our recent piece on speed in F1. As a further comparison we thought it might be interesting to compare the riders relative salaries and $/points as well.
It should be noted that although there are still 25 points for a win in MotoGP the remaining points allocation is slightly different with points being awarded down to 15th place as opposed to only the top 10 in F1.
Both Valentino Rossi and 2017 Champion Marc Marquez were reportedly paid $10M in salaries in 2017. This equates to $48,076 and $33,557 per point for Rossi and Marquez respectively. As is the case in F1 the highest paid superstars are generally not the best value for money in terms of $/point.
At the other end of the spectrum Jack Miller was paid a reported $350,000 implying a price tag of $4,268 for each of the Aussie’s 82 world championship points – great bang for buck for his EG 0,0 Marc VDS team.
A COMMON THREAD
There is a common thread between the two sports. Factory/manufacturer teams are willing to pay the top rider and drivers salaries that don’t appear to be good value based on their championship points. Their performance on track is one thing but as we alluded to earlier the branding and marketing value that these global superstars bring to their respective teams must commercially justify the big bucks they’re paid.
There are clearly a lot of factors on the table when driver’s negotiate their annual salary. Even so we think the $/point is a good rough and ready guide to the value for money offered by each F1 driver on the grid.
2017’s bang for buck winner Esteban Ocon had a tremendous 2017. As a result his salary has reportedly increased more than sixteenfold to $3m in 2018 – clearly Force India recognises the value the young Frenchman adds to the team.
Who will top the Bang for Buck tables in 2018? Let us know what you think.